Sewing Up Seams
by RosaLui
Summary: The tattoo hurt like coming alive.


**Disclaimer:** Not mine. :3

**A/N:** This is fic for 'Gates of Thread and Stone' by Lori M Lee. It's my first story after a two-year writing slump. Much love to Questofdreams and all the ways her series has inspired me. Thank you to Hina88 for being a wonderful beta.

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It was late.

Lanterns were already lit and lining the brick walls in the North District, flickering in the heavy air. Their soft light gentled the crumbling and peeling facades.

Inside the little shop on High Street, Avan glanced at a tarnished clock on the wall. It ticked its way to half past closing as he managed a cursory wipe-down of the counters and hasty sweep of the floors. Then he locked the door behind him, stepped down off the curb, and turned east. He walked past the closed windows and furled awnings of 6th Avenue, relaxing as he shed the façade of polite shop-worker, student, son. It would be waiting in the morning.

For tonight, he could breathe easy with no rules and no masters.

The docks would have been easy to find even in pure darkness. The acrid smell of rot and sound of revelry was recognizable from streets away. They offered a comfort all their own – freedom from treading softly or following commands for fear of reprisal.

A few people on the bridges called out to him. Some were friends, others interested in ways he was careful not to show made his skin crawl. He waved a greeting and kept moving on sure feet. In moments he had skirted the groups and headed into the Labyrinth.

Broken glass and sewage ran though the gutter between the river bank and towering freight cars. A section of battered piping had burst at some point in the night, giving way to years of wear. Van's club in the East Quarter took the worst damage, its usual smog of pipe smoke, backroom patrons, and alcohol bitter as gargoyle piss broken by what now clogged the street drains.

Avan led himself on a detour of his usual route. The narrow pathways, usually dangerous at this hour, were all but empty. Even the pickpockets, beneficiaries of distraction, had fled the stink.

Deeper into the Labyrinth, the smell faded. Tired now, Avan ducked stiffly under a row of hanging laundry, skirted a dead rat amongst the piles of trash, and found his destination.

The ladder to the third floor was shaky, as most in this area were. Its flaking rust and missing rungs were testament to the metal's age and wear. Where the rail had fallen away it was replaced by scrap wood and pieces of twine.

Avan made his way up with measured steps. He'd seen the neighborhood children race it when awake, bare feet slapping against the rungs with careless ease. Their bulk barely made the thing quiver, but he'd be six foot tall soon; growing like a weed, his teacher said.

From the curtained door above came light and the thick smell of spices. Through the door onto matted carpet, and Avan breathed a sigh of relief in shedding the last vestiges of unease from the day.

The freight container was older than most, an impressive achievement in the Labyrinth – but the family inside had made it their own. It was one room, makeshift, and personal. The floor was uneven metal sheeting, sections of old and mismatched carpet covering it as best possible. A few draped fabrics and an old mirror hid the bare framework of wall, and the low ceiling lantern was dimmed by a broken lampshade.

The room's main occupants were asleep on a cot by the wall. Two young daughters and their mother, piled like kittens in the single bed, exhausted from a day's work. The mother's hands were care-worn from harsh soap and calloused from heavy lifting, but they curled around her daughters' shoulders even in sleep.

The last occupant of the tiny space was Yaxa. He was of similar age to Avan – a classmate, until dropping out – and dark-eyed and wiry, still growing into his limbs. His grin was as bright as the hair under his bandana, which lay long, bleached, and tucked into a complicated plait at the back of his neck. He had hands like an artist, ink-stained fingers that Avan knew from the first time he'd ever answered, _Do you want to –_ with, _Why not?_

"I finished the design," Avan said in lieu of greeting, and pulled a folded square of paper from his back pocket.

Yaxa beckoned him in, gesturing toward the peeling crate-tops that held his ashtray and served as a table. A skinny kitten was curled up at one corner, first line of defense to keep the rats and bugs at bay. Behind them both, above a hand-crafted shelf of supplies, the wall was covered in paper and ink. Old street posters and half-realized tattoo sketches were scattered from floor to ceiling, and a graphic outline of two figures in intimate recline peeked out from between yellowing advertisements and recruiting pamphlets. Graffiti was scrawled over most of these, from children's scribblings to neater lines of poetry to, ambiguously, 'DREK.'

Avan lay his offering – a bag of produce, only a day old – on the table with a smile and slid the paper across. He then folded himself up to sit, legs crossed, taped knuckles held loosely on his lap.

"You brought me pineapple," Yaxa crowed, and dove into the bag without ceremony.

Avan nodded but didn't answer. He hunched over himself, nervous. Not because of Yaxa, not when they had seen one another in the most ridiculous and undignified of ways by now. It was the paper that made him uneasy, his dubious work of art on the back of an old invoice. It had taken form slowly, born in the hours spent between class and the shop. He had scratched away for months at the drawing, hiding it and his aching fingers from prying eyes. It had been just a slight dislocation, these last weeks – Avan had figured out most signs of minor injury years ago – but it raised more questions than he wanted to deflect.

"Staying here tonight?" Yaxa asked, ripping into the bag of fruit.

"Maybe," Avan said, before nodding at the paper.

Yaxa opened it with damp but careful fingers, and held it up to the lantern light. The room was silent but for Avan's own uneven breathing. He waited to hear his foolishness explained in clear and simple terms.

"It's a tree," he said, and then gave himself a very hard mental kick. Of course it was a tree. If Yaxa couldn't tell that it was a tree, his drawing skills were unsalvageable.

"Growing strong?" Yaxa finally asked around his pineapple. A faint line had appeared between his brows as he held the picture aloft.

Just growing, Avan thought, just showing signs of life to begin with. "Starting something new," he said at last, giddy. "I'm moving out."

His friend lowered the picture and looked at him, mouth slightly open in surprise. His eyes darted down to Avan's bandaged fingers. Everyone did that, and was bad at hiding it.

"Not yet," Avan continued, "I'm saving credits. Jag knows people at the freight yard and I can get space there if I'm lucky." She'd said that if he batted eyes at the manager he could likely move in sooner. Avan would rather wait the two years and buy it outright. Once he left, he'd give the Watchmen no excuses to drag him back.

"Your landlords have anything to say about that?" Yaxa used the term he always did for Avan's parents, who he had never called by name and would have gone out of his way to spit on each day if he could.

Avan shrugged one shoulder. He didn't say, _They can try and stop me._ The tree's sturdy branches said it for him. They spiraled up the page with abandon, mapping out a memory he didn't have it in him to tell. They were defiant like a slim girl with righteous fury in her eyes, graceful like her curtain of black hair and the arc of her tiny foot. _They can try and drekking stop me._

"Can you do it tonight?" He said instead. "I'll give you the credits as soon as I have them, you know I will."

Yaxa put the paper down and ate another piece of pineapple. "Something this size takes a few nights – and mum should see it first." He glanced at the sleeping figures on the cot. "Come back next week, when you can pay besides."

The idea of going back to that house empty-handed made it hard to breathe. "Tonight," Avan said again, smiling now, frustrated fingers caught in the hair at his nape. "I'll convince you, if you want."

Yaxa rolled his eyes. "That's not even – stop dimpling at me. Right side or left?"

"Left," he said, and pulled his tunic over his head.

"Hell, Avan," said Yaxa, which meant – well. He usually didn't say anything at all.

"None of it is bleeding."

"Hell," he said again.

"I'm fine, ignore it." It came out more terse than intended.

"If I could see your skin under the drekking purple," his friend snapped. "I've never tattooed over a drekking pile of bruises. If one of those ribs is broken – "

"It's not. Just –" He stopped. Took a breath. "I'd really appreciate if you could do – even part of it."

Yaxa opened his mouth as if to keep arguing, then closed it again. "It'll hurt like hell," he said in a businesslike tone that Avan was grateful for. "Bleed more. Bigger chance it gets infected."

"Don't worry about it."

The room was still. An insect scratched at the wall. The cat stretched and settled into a deeper sleep. In the next house, someone was snoring.

Yaxa huffed. "It's your drekking farewell ceremony. Give us a second to work on this."

They sat under lamplight as the night air cooled, Yaxa bent over the page with a brush, broad strokes covering over Avan's chicken scratch. The design grew under his hands, ink leaking through the thin paper and onto the stained towel beneath. Neither of them spoke, until –

"Green."

Yaxa looked up from where he had been inking a single leaf at the tip of the longest branch.

"Green," Avan said again, "so it looks alive."

His friend grinned at him, swirled the brush in a low cup of water, and dried it against the towel. "Lie down," he said. Then he picked up the cat and dropped her on Avan's feet. "Only thing we offer for the pain, sorry."

Avan lay down on the rough carpet, toes buried under the purring kitten, and watched as his friend pulled the lantern from the ceiling to his work area. He carefully shifted the shade, and the light shone unhindered on Avan's skin.

"Starting where?"

"There," said Avan, brushing his thumb against the bottom of his left jaw.

"There," Yaxa repeated, tapping his own fingers on the same spot, "to here." His hand hovered just under Avan's collar bone. "Call it a guarantee on the rest."

Avan could deal with that. Lower branches, trunk, and roots could wait until he was in a place of his own – and wasn't that thought euphoric.

Yaxa brought a small tool kit down from the top shelf behind him, placing three pots of pigmented ink – two black, one green – on the table. The next item was a long, thin rod wrapped in clean cloth. Thicker than needles used for sewing, it was closer to the size of those that made the soft blankets sold in stalls by the White Court.

"No hiding this under clothes," Yaxa said, though it sounded more like approval than warning.

"Good," Avan said. That meant no forgetting it when he looked in the mirror. No teachers, classmates, family who could look away and pretend to not have seen.

Yaxa glanced at his face. "This'll take all night. Sleep, if you can."

Avan's mind was already beginning to drift, body relaxing where it stretched out on the floor. His eyes focused on his own hazy form in the spotted and rusting mirror.

"Thank you," he said finally.

Yaxa just adjusted the lantern one last time, prepared the needle with ink, and tipped Avan's face gently upward.

The first pierce of the needle hurt. Pain roared up, shooting through his gut worse than any summer insect bite. His neck stung, burned, and went numb as the needle continued its path downward.

It hurt like coming alive. It hurt like something fresh blossoming inside him, something of his own making. Like he was laying claim to his skin, piece by piece.

He watched through wet eyelashes as the black lines appeared in the mirror, forming plates of armor over tendon and muscle. They were as ugly and beautiful as broken fingers healed crooked, splayed out in defense against the world.

The first decision he'd made for himself, for his own body, his own life. The first of what he swore would be just one in a long line.

No rules, no masters. That would be him, someday.

And then he'd never look back.

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